Entries Tagged "videos"

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German TV on the Failure of Full-Body Scanners

The video is worth watching, even if you don’t speak German. The scanner caught a subject’s cell phone and Swiss Army knife—and the microphone he was wearing—but missed all the components to make a bomb that he hid on his body. Admittedly, he only faced the scanner from the front and not from the side. But he also didn’t hide anything in a body cavity other than his mouth—I didn’t think about that one—he didn’t use low density or thinly sliced PETN, and he didn’t hide anything in his carry-on luggage.

Full-body scanners: they’re not just a dumb idea, they don’t actually work.

Posted on January 22, 2010 at 7:28 AMView Comments

Cybersecurity Theater at FOSE

FOSE, the big government IT conference, has a “Cybersecurity Theater” this year. I wonder if they’ll check photo IDs.

On a similar note, I am pleased that my term “security theater” has finally hit the mainstream. It’s everywhere. My favorite variant is “security theater of the absurd.”

And this great cartoon. And two more.

Jon Stewart didn’t use the words “security theater,” but he was pretty funny on January 4.

Posted on January 8, 2010 at 12:14 PMView Comments

Me and the Christmas Underwear Bomber

I spent a lot of yesterday giving press interviews. Nothing I haven’t said before, but it’s now national news and everyone wants to hear it.

These are the most interesting bits. Rachel Maddow interviewed me last night on her show. Jeffrey Goldberg interviewed me for the Atlantic website. And CNN.com published a rewrite of an older article of mine on terrorism and security.

I’ve started to call the bizarre new TSA rules “magical thinking”: if we somehow protect against the specific tactic of the previous terrorist, we make ourselves safe from the next terrorist.

EDITED TO ADD (12/29): I don’t know about this quote:

“I flew 265,000 miles last year,” said Bruce Schneier, a cryptographer and security analyst. “You know what really pisses me off? Making me check my luggage. Not letting me use my laptop, so I can’t work. Taking away my Kindle, so I can’t read. I care about those things. I care about making me safer much, much less.”

For the record, I do care about being safer. I just don’t think any of the airplane security measures proposed by the TSA accomplish that.

Posted on December 29, 2009 at 11:17 AMView Comments

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Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.